Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Filming Locations

The prequel to The Hunger Games transported audiences back to the origins of Panem’s brutal spectacle, revealing the younger years of Coriolanus Snow and the fateful 10th Hunger Games. Unlike the original trilogy’s predominantly American settings, director Francis Lawrence and his production team chose a dramatically different approach for this chapter. They ventured across Europe, selecting architecturally significant locations in Germany and Poland that could embody both the Capitol’s faded grandeur and District 12’s industrial despair.

These weren’t arbitrary choices. Each building and landscape was meticulously selected to reflect the post-war aesthetic of a recovering dictatorship—a Capitol not yet restored to its later opulence, and districts still bearing the scars of rebellion. From the neoclassical museums of Berlin to the abandoned steelworks of Duisburg, every location adds layers of authenticity that CGI alone could never achieve.

Berlin’s Transformation into the Capitol

Berlin served as the primary backdrop for Panem’s Capitol, and the decision wasn’t simply about finding grand buildings. The German capital’s complex 20th-century history—marked by division, reconstruction, and architectural statements of power—made it the perfect canvas for depicting a society rebuilding itself after civil war whilst maintaining authoritarian control.

The production team spent months scouting locations that could convey the Capitol’s attempts at projecting strength through architecture. They needed structures that appeared imposing yet showed subtle signs of wear, buildings that represented classical ideals of power whilst hinting at recent trauma. Berlin’s diverse architectural landscape, spanning neoclassicism to Soviet-era modernism, provided exactly what the narrative demanded.

The Altes Museum: Snow’s Academy

Standing proudly on Museum Island, the Altes Museum became the exterior of the prestigious academy where young Coriolanus Snow and his fellow Capitol elites received their education. Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and completed in 1830, this neoclassical masterpiece features imposing columns and a symmetrical design that speaks to ideals of order and tradition—precisely the image the Capitol wishes to project.

The museum’s grand staircase and columned entrance appear repeatedly throughout the film, particularly in scenes where Snow and his classmates arrive for their mentoring assignments. The building’s position on Museum Island, surrounded by other cultural institutions, reinforced the Capitol’s self-image as the keeper of civilisation and culture within Panem.

Visitors can access the Altes Museum easily via Berlin’s U-Bahn, with the Friedrichstraße station offering the closest connection. Entry costs approximately €12 for adults, though the exterior—the primary filming location—can be admired freely from the surrounding grounds. The museum operates as a functioning cultural institution displaying ancient artefacts, so visiting both the interior collection and the filming locations makes for a worthwhile experience.

Olympiastadion: The Games’ Exterior

The Berlin Olympic Stadium provided the imposing exterior shots of the arena where the 10th Hunger Games unfold. Originally constructed for the 1936 Summer Olympics, this massive concrete structure embodies exactly the kind of intimidating scale the production required. Its heavy, monumental architecture creates an atmosphere of institutional power designed to dwarf individual human significance.

The stadium’s exterior colonnade and surrounding grounds feature prominently in scenes showing tributes and mentors arriving at the Games. The production team capitalised on the structure’s existing gravitas rather than disguising it, allowing the building’s real-world associations with spectacle and mass gatherings to inform the fictional event.

Reaching the Olympiastadion requires taking the S-Bahn to the dedicated station of the same name. Stadium tours run regularly throughout the year, priced around €8-14 depending on whether matches or events are scheduled. The surrounding Olympic Park offers extensive grounds worth exploring, particularly for fans interested in understanding how the film transformed this historical venue into Panem’s deadly arena.

Karl-Marx-Allee and Strausberger Platz: Capitol Streets

The sweeping boulevards of Karl-Marx-Allee and the circular plaza of Strausberger Platz provided the backdrop for various Capitol street scenes, including moments when characters move through the city’s public spaces. These locations, built during East Berlin’s Soviet era, feature the monumental “wedding cake” style buildings that perfectly capture the Capitol’s aesthetic of imposing uniformity mixed with decorative excess.

Strausberger Platz in particular appears in several scenes, its distinctive towers and wide plaza offering a sense of scale and urban planning that feels both grand and slightly oppressive. The production team appreciated how these spaces already possessed a cinematic quality, requiring minimal alteration to suggest a society built around spectacle and control.

Both locations remain fully accessible public spaces in modern Berlin. Walking the length of Karl-Marx-Allee from Strausberger Platz to Alexanderplatz takes roughly twenty minutes and offers a genuine sense of the scale used in filming. The area has transformed into a fashionable district with cafés and shops, providing pleasant stops whilst retracing the film’s steps.

Additional Berlin Locations

Several other Berlin locations feature briefly throughout the film. Der Bärensaal im Alten Stadthaus, the ornate Bear Hall in Berlin’s old city hall, served as the interior venue for academy scenes requiring elaborate period detail. The Tiergarten, Berlin’s sprawling central park, provided natural landscape shots contrasting with the urban architecture.

These supporting locations demonstrate the production’s commitment to finding authentic environments rather than relying entirely on studio sets. Each contributes to building a coherent visual world where the Capitol feels like a real, functioning city rather than a collection of disconnected facades.

Wrocław’s Arena and Beyond

Whilst Berlin dominated the Capitol scenes, the production shifted to Poland for the arena itself and some of District 12’s environments. Wrocław, Poland’s fourth-largest city, offered the Centennial Hall—a structure that would become the heart of the 10th Hunger Games’ deadly spectacle.

The decision to film in Poland brought practical benefits beyond just architecture. The country’s well-developed film infrastructure, experienced local crews, and government support for international productions made it an attractive choice. Wrocław specifically provided a compact filming environment where multiple locations sat within a reasonable distance of each other.

Centennial Hall: Inside the Arena

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed Centennial Hall stands as one of the early 20th-century architecture’s most impressive achievements. Completed in 1913, its massive reinforced concrete dome spans 65 metres and was revolutionary for its time. This structure became the interior of the 10th Hunger Games arena, its vast circular space and industrial aesthetic perfectly suited to depicting the Games in their earlier, more rudimentary form.

The production team constructed elaborate sets within the hall’s interior, transforming the space into a crumbling amphitheatre that suggested both ancient Roman spectacles and modern brutality. The building’s existing concrete textures and geometric forms required less disguising than might be expected, as they already conveyed the harsh, utilitarian quality the narrative required.

Centennial Hall remains an active venue hosting concerts, exhibitions, and cultural events. Guided tours run regularly, priced around 15 złoty (approximately £3). The hall sits within a broader complex including Japanese gardens and a multimedia fountain, making it worth allocating several hours for a visit. English-language tours can be arranged in advance through the official website.

Wrocław’s District 12 Elements

Beyond the arena, Wrocław provided additional locations representing District 12’s more “civilised” areas—the marketplace and town centre where Lucy Gray Baird performs and interacts with locals before the Games. The city’s Market Square and surrounding streets offered period-appropriate architecture that could be dressed to suggest a provincial town under Capitol control.

These scenes required less dramatic transformation than other locations, as Wrocław’s historic centre naturally possesses a timeworn quality. The production team added selective set dressing—propaganda posters, period-appropriate signage, and carefully controlled colour grading—to shift the Polish city into Panem’s Appalachian district.

Exploring Wrocław’s Old Town provides insight into how the filmmakers worked with existing architecture. The Market Square, one of Europe’s largest, features colourful townhouses and Gothic churches that appear fleetingly in the background of District 12 scenes. Walking tours focusing on the city’s film history have begun operating, though these remain less developed than in Berlin.

Duisburg’s Industrial Heart as District 12

For District 12’s most distinctive elements—the mining infrastructure and post-industrial landscape—the production travelled to Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord in western Germany. This former steelworks, abandoned in 1985 and transformed into a public park, provided exactly the kind of decaying industrial architecture the narrative demanded.

The park’s rusting blast furnaces, towering ore bunkers, and networks of pipes and catwalks create a landscape that feels genuinely lived-in by working people whilst simultaneously appearing harsh and exploitative. Unlike purpose-built sets, these structures carry decades of authentic weathering and wear that CGI struggles to replicate convincingly.

The Mining District Exteriors

Landschaftspark’s industrial structures appear extensively in scenes showing District 12’s mining operations and the surrounding residential areas where workers live. The film’s colour grading emphasises the location’s rust-browns and steel-greys, creating a visual palette distinctly different from the Capitol’s cooler tones.

Production designer Uli Hanisch has described how Landschaftspark offered “ready-made” environments that communicated District 12’s relationship with heavy industry and resource extraction. The location’s existing paths and viewing platforms, built for park visitors, provided practical filming access whilst the structures themselves needed minimal modification to read as functioning mining infrastructure.

The park operates as a free public space, open twenty-four hours a day. Its popularity with photographers and urban explorers means it rarely feels deserted, but early morning visits offer the most atmospheric experience. Climbing the blast furnace viewing platform provides panoramic views across the Ruhr industrial region—a landscape that has undergone the kind of post-industrial transformation Panem’s districts never receive.

The Hanging Tree Location

One of the film’s most symbolically important locations—the hanging tree where Lucy Gray performs and later where crucial plot developments occur—was constructed at Landschaftspark specifically for filming. The production team selected a spot within the park’s grounds that balanced accessibility for filming equipment with visual isolation from modern intrusions.

This artificial location demonstrates how the production blended real environments with constructed elements. The tree itself was brought in, but its placement within Landschaftspark’s genuine industrial ruins helped it feel organic to the world rather than obviously staged.

Leipzig and Secondary German Locations

Whilst Berlin and Duisburg dominated Germany’s contribution to the film, several scenes were captured in Leipzig, approximately 190 kilometres southwest of Berlin. This smaller-scale involvement suggests the production sought specific architectural elements or streetscapes that complemented the primary locations.

Leipzig’s Architectural Contributions

Leipzig’s contribution appears primarily in transitional scenes and establishing shots that build out the Capitol’s geography beyond the main locations. The city’s mix of baroque, neoclassical, and modernist architecture offered variety that helped make the Capitol feel like a complex urban environment rather than a handful of iconic buildings.

Specific Leipzig locations haven’t been officially catalogued by the production, reflecting how secondary filming locations often serve supporting visual roles rather than being immediately recognisable to audiences. Film tourism enthusiasts have identified potential matches in Leipzig’s city centre, though without production confirmation, these remain educated speculation.

One practical benefit of filming across multiple German locations was the country’s excellent rail network. Moving cast, crew, and equipment between Berlin, Leipzig, and Duisburg proved straightforward compared to many international productions spanning similar distances.

This connectivity also benefits film tourists planning to visit multiple locations. Direct trains run regularly between Berlin and Duisburg (approximately four hours), whilst Leipzig sits conveniently between the two. Planning a multi-day filming locations tour becomes entirely feasible using Germany’s efficient Deutsche Bahn services.

Planning Your Filming Locations Visit

Visiting the Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes filming locations requires more planning than single-city film tourism, but offers rewards beyond just ticking off recognisable sites. These locations exist as functioning places with their own histories and cultural significance, making them worthwhile destinations independent of their Hunger Games connections.

Creating a Multi-City Itinerary

A comprehensive filming locations tour requires at least four to five days to cover Berlin, Duisburg, and Wrocław without feeling rushed. Most visitors begin in Berlin, spending two days exploring the Capital’s locations whilst enjoying the city’s broader cultural offerings. The German capital provides countless museums, historical sites, and cultural experiences beyond Hunger Games locations.

From Berlin, travellers face a choice: head west to Duisburg or east to Wrocław. Going west first allows a logical geographical flow—Berlin to Duisburg (four hours by train), then Duisburg to Wrocław (approximately nine hours with connections). Alternatively, flying from Berlin to Wrocław takes just over an hour, making it feasible to visit Poland first before returning to western Germany.

Wrocław deserves at least a full day and preferably two. Beyond the Centennial Hall, the city offers a beautifully preserved historic centre, fascinating 20th-century history, and a thriving cultural scene. The film locations integrate into broader sightseeing rather than being isolated destinations.

Accommodation and Local Transport

Berlin offers accommodation at every price point, from hostels around €25 per night to luxury hotels exceeding €200. Locations near Friedrichstraße or Alexanderplatz provide easy access to filming sites whilst keeping you well-connected to the rest of the city. Berlin’s public transport system operates efficiently, with day passes costing €8.80, covering all zones.

Duisburg requires less accommodation time since the Landschaftspark can be thoroughly explored in half a day. Many visitors base themselves in nearby Düsseldorf (twenty minutes by train) or even Cologne (forty-five minutes), both offering superior dining and entertainment options whilst maintaining easy access to the filming location.

Wrocław’s accommodation proves notably cheaper than Germany, with comfortable mid-range hotels available from £40-60 nightly. The city’s compact Old Town means most hotels sit within walking distance of the Market Square and other central filming locations. The Centennial Hall requires a tram journey (around three złoty) or a thirty-minute walk from the centre.

Budget Considerations

Overall trip costs vary dramatically based on accommodation choices and travel timing, but a budget-conscious approach might look like this: five nights’ accommodation (hostels/budget hotels) around £150-200, inter-city transport approximately £100-120, attraction entries and local transport roughly £60-80, plus meals and incidentals. A comfortable week covering all major locations could reasonably cost £600-800 per person, excluding flights to Europe.

Mid-range travellers selecting nicer hotels and restaurants might budget £1,000-1,400, whilst luxury travellers with premium accommodation and transport could easily exceed £2,000. Off-season travel (November-March, excluding Christmas markets period) typically offers 20-30% savings on accommodation without significantly impacting the filming locations experience.

Every filming location mentioned remains an active space with purposes beyond film tourism. The Altes Museum houses priceless ancient artefacts. Centennial Hall hosts concerts and exhibitions. Landschaftspark serves local communities as a green space. Visiting these places requires respecting their primary functions and other visitors.

This particularly matters at locations like Landschaftspark, where local families use the space for recreation and relaxation. Taking photographs is perfectly acceptable, but elaborate cosplay photo shoots or disruptive behaviour undermine the community resource these transformed industrial sites represent.

Conclusion

The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes filming locations span two countries and multiple cities, yet they cohere into a unified vision of Panem’s origins. From Berlin’s imposing museums to Wrocław’s architectural marvel to Duisburg’s industrial ruins, each location was selected to reinforce the story’s themes whilst providing authentic environments that ground the dystopian fiction in tactile reality. Visiting these sites offers film fans an opportunity to walk through Panem whilst exploring genuinely fascinating cities and landmarks worth experiencing regardless of their Hunger Games connections.